NS BusinessCard especially business for NS (Dutch Railways)

One of my intentions for this year is making use of my NS Businesscard optimally now this card is also available for employees of our company without a leasecar. But apparently the advantage is mostly for the Dutch Railways themselves!

I commute between Alkmaar and Amsterdam on daily bases by thirst class coach. I don’t buy a return-ticket, because it is cheaper to buy a single trip in the morning (rush hour tariff) and a single trip in the afternoon (reduced tariff) in combination with a ‘Reduction hours cars’ (dutch: voordeelurenkaart). (EUR 21,20 v.s. EUR 18,40).
With the businesscard I get a discount of 13% in the rush hour period and a reduction of 20% in the reduced tariff period. A return ticket with the business card costs EUR 18,44.
I seems cheaper to use the businesscard because the reductioncard also costs money (EUR 55,00/ year), but this isn’t entirely true.

With the businesscard, I can’t take somebody with me on reduced tariff and with the reductioncard I can. If I use the reductioncard next to the businesscard the advantage is more visible. With my contruction of buying a single trip in the morning and in the afternoon, I pay EUR 16,90. After 37 days the break-even point for my reductioncard is reached. The businesscard hasn’t given me a ‘hughe’ advantage except the 13% in rush-hour.

Now this seems a nice benefit, but not everything is like it seems. This benefit is only applicable when booked via internet. On the internet no costs are calculated, when using the phone the costs are ’10 eurocents par minute (plus the costs of your mobile provider)’. And then the misery really starts: a voice response system. I don’t know if anybody has ever used a similar system, then you probably know what menace this can be!

The computer doesn’t tolerate any backgroundnoises. It starts with the originating station. I can now tell from experience that ‘Alkmaar Noord’ apparently sounds like ‘Emmeloord’ and all other places ending on ‘Noord’ or ‘Oord’. Sometimes even stations like ‘Horst Sevenum’, ‘Schiedam’and ‘Amersfoort Schothorst’ are confirmed and I can’t imagine my speech is that miserable. I can imagine that by getting more and more frustrated you try to articulate more and more and the computer understands less and less of this (not to mention the surprised faces on the platforms). The average time a call lasts is 6 minutes, the longest call was 12 where I finally had to record my journey on a tape so a typist could insert my journey later on. ‘The computer was very sorry, but couldn’t understand my journey’, I couldn’t either: Rotterdam Blaak to Leeuwarden via AlkmaarNoord before nine o’clock in the morning. The costs for a call are from EUR 0,60 to EUR 1,20 average. My profits with the businesscard are thus reduced to ‘nihil’ when using the card for which it is intended: traveling by train.

But apparently there are also all kinds of other extra’s. Like the Hispeed Businesslounge. In Utrecht open till 22.00 (other locations 20.00), always handy when waiting on the train after a practicemeeting which lasted till ten.

Or what about the SMART that awaits on a station. Easy access; businesscard against the window (reservations to be made first), businesscard in the computer and the glove compartment opens with the fuel card, parking card and keys are inside.
How convenient… well it should for EUR 10 per hour!
Mind; at SIXX a smart costs EUR 5 per day and at the Smart dealer EUR 5 lease, per day. When reservations are made you can rent a smart at Herz (directly situated behind the station of Utrecht) for EUR 20,00 a day.

When traveling to Papendorp by bus (before 6 o’clock this is easily done) and back to the station by taxi I travel much cheaper. The bus costs EUR 2,40 and the taxi (UTC) EUR 12,50, which adds up to EUR 14,90. Last time I rented the NS Smart from 16.30 – 22.30 I paid EUR 60,- . When renting a taxi via the businesscard the taxi is more expensive mind you, because you have to book from a preferred supplier.

The OV Bike I haven’t tried yet. But because of my experiences I wonder if there is any advantage or that it is also an empty gesture.

The next huge advantage is parking at the station. Normally I park for free, but sometimes I have to park at a paid lot. A day ticket costs EUR 3.90. With the business card I pay EUR 3.40. I find this a huge profit! - NOT

The last benefit of the businesscard I tried is the HOTSPOT pre-paid account for EUR 9,95.
Ever tried to connect to the internet, make a VPN connection AND download your mail in the time a train stops at a station? You better pray that an old lady with rollator wants to get the train and the conductor is nice enough to wait.

There are even some disadvantages of using the businesscard (which is also a OV card) where I won’t get into in this blog, which is long enough already.
It’s nice to have a card which is supposed to give a lot of profit, but in this case the profit isn’t that obvious. Despite my good intentions.

Municipality Menace

Yesterday I celebrated my birthday (a big thanks for everybody who send me a message!) and it was fun until the evening, then the municipality of Alkmaar thouroughly ruined my day within ten minutes of time!

In the evening we decided to go out for dinner. Our choice was 'the Eetpaleis' in the center of Alkmaar. It was a quarter passed seven as we drove away from home and arrived in the city center round half past seven. We parked in a street called 'Laat', and walked to the parking machine. Mind you: it is February, no shops are open because it's wednesday, no events and Alkmaar wants you to pay for parking till eight in the evening (idiocy!). But okay; I call my husband, because I left my wallet at home. My husband only has his paycard with him, because he also didn't expect a fee for parking at this time. We decide to walk over to the bank to load money on the 'chipknip' (sort of e-purse) to pay for the parking. As we come walking back there is it; a parking ticket!

For 50 EURO's (plus the hourly fee of 2,30 EUR) and the parking survaillance is no-where to be seen anymore! So, my dinner was ruined, no money for desert now.... It is now 46 past 7 (about ten minutes have passed since we went to the bank and returned to the car, the car is still hot of driving) and I'm angry and frustrated like hell! Happy birthday by the Alkmaar Municipality Menace.

Sustainability Testing

In the last couple of months I've been seeing more and more articles, messages and initiatives (http://www.blackle.nl/ (claiming black is more environmental friendly than white, because the pixels use less energy)) about the environment and IT. The latest was a large frontpage issue on the 'Automatisering Gids' (a weekly, dutch, newspaperlike magazine about IT), about 'Green (web)Sites'.
Then it occured to me that a new quality characteristic is 'born', not yet foreseen in both TMap(R)'s or ISO 9126 list of characteristics: Sustainability.

Sustainability is affiliated to efficiency I think, but doens't cover the overtones.
Sustainability is a set of attributes that bear on what degree the software will be sparingly on the (ecological) environment

• use of energy/ energy-saving
• supportive of environmental initiatives (i.e. webbased that reduces travel)
• climate neutrality

A colleague of mine also talked about testing in the light of Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR. So I think this is one aspect of the three area's mentioned in there (People, planet en profit). I see a whole market for testingspecialists in the area of sustainability (perhaps wearing goat-haired socks and using solar-powered laptops). There's still a lot to be developed on this area, but the world is changing into a more envrionmental focussed one, so I thing sustainability will be a serious topic to research for testing goals. And to be far ahead of things, I even think the 'people' part will be a characteristic to be tested one day.

'Humanability', a set of attributes that all bear on what degree the software supports the well-being of people, is affiated to usability, but doesn't quite cover the overtones.... I will meditate on this a bit further....

Philosophize...

With money you can...

Buy a house, but not a home
Buy a clock, but not time
Buy a bed, but not sleep
Buy sex, but not love
Buy a book, but not knowledge
Buy status, but not respect

free translation of a chinese saying

Well begun is half done…

2009 has just started but already the publications on software and the bugs they contain are starting to come in my mailbox regularly. The ‘automatiseringsgids’ as well as the blog of Michael Bolton (the tester, not the singer) publish about the top 25 blunders made in software that lead to cybercrime. (http://www.automatiseringgids.nl/Technologie/Software/2009/3/Expertgroep%20publiceert%20top%2025%20softwaremissers.aspx (Dutch) and http://www.developsense.com/2009/01/most-serious-programming-error.html)
If I’m to believe the saying ‘well begun is half done’ then I have half a job to do this year! Uhmmm… can I put some questionmarks here?

2009 has just started and the ‘calls for papers’ and invitations are pouring into my mailbox. A super start thus! I saw a call for paper from EuroSTAR some time ago and to my horror I realized the deadline is on the 27th of February! I saw a very good initiative from our own Knowledge SIG to boost the (testing)information on [internal]wiki; every third Monday in a month they organize a writers evening. I saw an invitation to a SEPA training and the invitation from TestNet for their first meeting. This is where I really start to doubt the saying… this good start doubles my work instead of halving it!

So I hereby can say: I tested the ‘well begun is half done’ statement and concluded that it failed. My advice on this is to change the saying to a more accurate approach. Well begun, means lots of work still has to be done!
Please comment for all other suggestions!

Have a good 2009 with loads of activities within the testing profession!

***this Blogpost is from my column in our Internal Newsletter on Testing ***

Testing and Ethics II

I held a common house discussion last week on this subject at my office, with help of a colleague. Alas there where a lot of no-shows, so the group was small. Fortunately the people who showed up where fanatic and did some good work on the discussion.

I had prepared, again with help of a colleague, 10 statements on which half of the group were obligated to defend this statement (pro) and the other half were obligated to take the opposition (against). This made it really fun and answers where suprising at least! I'm writing a piece (synopsis) to submit for EuroSTAR 2009 in Stockholm toghether with another colleague for a workshop because I would really like to follow up seriously on this subject.

Don't underestimate the power of the Dark side... is a famous quote among fans an is surely applicable on this subject.

Below are the statements I prepared, I you would like to contribute to this discussion please leave a comment or look for the discussion on LinkedIn - groups.
Have fun!

• You can break the law to get meet your test goals


• To protect yourself and/ or your company you may not mention (certain) results


• Manipulation of test is allowed:


• Execute only the right-paths


• Execute only cases you know will have a positive result


• Execute those cases where you want to have the answers on


• You must always tell the truth


• You must always be able to use Privacy sensitive data to test


• You can drop test cases to your own insight if necessary to be ready on time


• You must always pass on your work when your own standards and values get into a corner


• As tester you should set aside your own standards and values to test thoroughly


• As tester you shouldn’t have professional ethical code because it hinders the good execution of tests


• Testing and ethics don’t mix

A testers life for me!

I had a fantastic week this week, full of creativity, energy, ideas and good conversations. Surprises and - allthough work got tough this week on my projects and I mad tooooooo much hours- a very satisfying week worth of work. Not only this week but also the week before that was very much full of positive energy.
The world around me maybe in crisis financially, I'm determined to keep up the good faith!

Highlights:
I did a couple of 'speeddatesessions' on schools with girls who have to choose their profile this year. As a woman who has done the Bèta profile and studied something technical (resp; Chemical Technology, Food Technology and IT) I'm proud to be a 'mirrorimage' or rolemodel for VHTO (www.vhto.nl) and I hope to excite these girls (3 HAVO/VWO) to choose a 'NT' profile.

I did loads of development, research and writing on testing (some things for internal use, so sorry I can't publish them here) and I've still loads of info in my head. I did 1 entry for EuroSTAR individually and have 2 still to be entered (so it will get late this evening for I plan to finish the draft versions this evening)

I had two very good conversations these week. One was on code-reviewing and certificationlevels hereoff and the second was on ExpertGroup Development and controversial / innovative developement within the Testing profession AND - very important - the human side of the profession. With IfSq and TestValue respectively. Gentlemen: again my thanks to both of you for the very inspirational talks and compliments! I have allready ordered special extra wide shoes so I won't be able to walk besides them (of course they are 'IS SHOES' (see entry earlier).
Also I would like to mention in this light: I'm going to do research the upcoming period and rethink some topics discussed! To be continued!

I did my first NEN session today. It was an introductary session where everybody introduced himself / herself and where goals where clarified. I expect great things from this group and look forward to the upcoming timeperiod in which the sessions to develop the standard on softwaretesting are going to be held.

I got my official certificate by snailmail on 'Senior Test Engineer' (SE2) also OpenGroup certification level 1. And a beautyfull bouquet of my employer!

Last Highlight was the surprise of a colleague who suddenly appeared at work for a visit (an short meeting) since long time of sickness. I thought this the most bright moment of the week since not only I but also my colleague was involved!

and cheezeburgers was particularily funny this week... but this was not really an important highlight, but made some happy moments anyway.

Yep, a testers life for me!